Students at universities this year are paying more tuition fees, after Keir Starmer’s Labour government increased them for the first time in nearly a decade. Left up to Labour, our fees will rise to over £10,000 by 2029.
And what do students get? Not only are we set to graduate with even more student debt, our maintenance loans don’t even cover the cost of housing, let alone other essentials. Even those receiving the maximum maintenance loan this year would need to take 20 hours of paid work per week just to reach a basic standard of living.
Meanwhile, cuts to our education keep coming. Over half of universities are set to record ‘deficit budgets’ this year, the government’s own Office for Students has predicted. Earlier in the year, the University and College Union (UCU) predicted that uni bosses would try and cut over 10,000 jobs, destroying thousands of courses and even entire departments in dozens of universities.
Some vice chancellors are even looking at ‘mergers’ with other universities. But why should they get to decide this over the heads of thousands of students and staff? Their record is one of running our universities into the ground, in collaboration with successive Tory and Labour governments. We can’t trust any of them with our education, because they all accept a capitalist system that puts the profits of the super-rich before the needs of the vast majority – including the right to a decent education.
Workers have fought back
By taking strike action last year, university workers were able to halt planned cuts in several universities. In Scotland and Wales, staff also won millions of pounds in extra government funding through their strikes.
Imagine how much more funding could be forced from the government if there was strike action on all campuses across the country! That’s why Socialist Students supports university workers taking strike action, including supporting a vote to strike in the national strike ballot that will open later this term.
Socialist Students members will be on the picket line supporting staff in our shared struggle for funding, not fees and cuts. We campaign for student unions to be democratic, fighting organisations that give us a voice – including committing to building student solidarity whenever staff take strike action for better pay, conditions and funding.
We won’t accept their crisis
The university sector is in a deep funding crisis. But the only ‘solution’ offered by this pro-big business Labour government is to raise fees and encourage even more cuts, pushing the burden even further onto staff and students.
Why should we pay the price, at a time when the rich have never been richer? The FTSE 100 biggest corporations in Britain have been paying out around £85 billion annually to their shareholders. Students and staff need to unite in a movement that could put that wealth in our hands in order to fully fund education. That would include making education free for all, by abolishing tuition fees and providing maintenance grants that actually cover students’ living costs.
If education was fully funded, university managements would not be incentivised to invest our tuition fees in arms manufacturers and other shady companies in order to boost income. They would have no justifications for making cuts. Student housing could be massively expanded and improved, with rent controls introduced to ensure no student is paying the majority of their income on a place to live.
Socialist Students initiated the Funding Not Fees campaign last year, as a means to get students organised alongside staff in a movement for fully funded, free education. As well as holding protests on dozens of campuses, a key part of the campaign has been lobbying MPs – fighting for our movement to have a political voice.
That fight could be massively boosted this year. Two MPs, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, have said they will build a new party. Over 800,000 have signed up so far, including thousands and thousands of students.
When Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, his anti-austerity, anti-war policies enthused hundreds of thousands of young people. A major reason for that was his offer of free education in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
Now students have the chance for there to be a mass party that will fight fees and cuts, and fund education by making the super-rich pay. At a recent ‘Your Party’ meeting in Blackburn, Corbyn called for an end to tuition fees and a return of maintenance grants.
Socialist Students will be joining the new party and doing all we can for it to win the things students and working-class people need to live a decent life. That includes continuing to build the movement for free education on our campuses this year.
Join Socialist Students to fight for:
- No fee rises! Scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt
- Living grants, not loans, which rise with the cost of living
- Stop all cuts and closures on campus
- Rent controls in student accommodation
- End low pay and casualisation of staff
- Divestment from arms and big business – no place for profiteers from war and exploitation on our campus
- A political voice for students that fights to take the wealth off the 1% and for socialism
